ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Healthcare Professions Education: 2025View all 13 articles
CPR knowledge among rural grassroots healthcare workers in Xinjiang, China: a cross-sectional analysis
Provisionally accepted
- the People's Hospital of Atushi City, Atushi, China
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Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival depends on rapid recognition, high-quality chest compressions, and early automated external defibrillator (AED) use. Township household health education instructors in rural China are grassroots healthcare workers and are often the earliest reachable trained personnel in emergencies, yet their cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) readiness is under-characterized. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of a programmatic survey of 235 instructors in Xinjiang, China. The instrument captured demographics, training exposure and recency, AED awareness, item-level CPR knowledge, rescue willingness, and preferences. We derived a composite readiness score (0–100) and a strict overall accuracy score averaging seven item-correctness indicators; group differences used chi-square/Fisher or Kruskal–Wallis tests with FDR-adjusted post hoc comparisons, and readiness correlates were examined by ordinary least squares (OLS). Participants were predominantly female (97.4%), mean age 37.4 ± 7.1 years; 86.4% Uyghur, 12.3% Kyrgyz, 1.3% Han; 87.7% had any CPR training; 80.4% reported AED awareness. Mean readiness was 79.4 ± 19.0; strict overall accuracy was 62.2 ± 25.6%. Item-level correct rates were: "golden time" 77.4%, compression location 73.2%, compression rate 63.4%, indication 62.1%, compression depth 56.6%, AED timing 56.2%, all respiration steps 46.8%. Trained versus untrained participants had higher readiness (83.7 ± 14.4 vs. 48.4 ± 18.9; p < 0.0001) and accuracy (0.65 vs. 0.42; p < 0.0001). Readiness varied by ethnicity (p = 0.0096; Uyghur > Kyrgyz, FDR = 0.050) and education (p = 0.00064). In OLS, any training (+23.9; p < 0.0001), self-rated "very clear" knowledge (+13.7; p < 0.0001), and AED awareness (+5.0; p = 0.019) independently increased readiness, whereas middle-school education (−9.10; p = 0.0095) and married status (−7.77; p = 0.010) decreased readiness. Findings indicate generally favorable readiness with tractable gaps, supporting low-dose, high-frequency, bilingual, hands-on refreshers tailored to rural Xinjiang.
Keywords: Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest, external defibrillator, Township household health education instructors, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Cross-sectional analysis
Received: 02 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Kuai, Zhu, Tang, Liu and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jin Ma, 103118900@qq.com
Weiwei Zhou, weigoo1224@163.com
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